Turkey has emerged as one of the most influential power brokers in Syria after rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad last month, ending his family's brutal five-decade rule.

The new administration’s first visit to Ankara comes amid an intensifying struggle for the partition of Syria between the states behind the overthrow of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by jihadists led by the al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

A fresh drive to bring an end to Turkey’s 40-year Kurdish conflict has seen politicians from the pro-Kurdish party meet jailed leaders

Turkey’s actions in Syria and Iraq also signal a deeper shift away from its Western alliances. Erdogan’s government has cultivated closer ties with Russia.

Turkey has offered military assistance and capacity-building support to the new Syrian military to combat “terrorist groups”, during an unprecedented visit by a high-level Syrian delegation led by the new Syrian foreign minister to Ankara on Wednesday.

A rightist ally of President Erdogan, Devlet Bahceli of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party, this week openly questioned Greece’s sovereignty over the islands of the southeastern Aegean. In so doing Mr. Bahceli challenges the provisions of international laws and agreements such as the 1923 Lausanne Treaty.

The appointment of trustees and other attacks on democratic rights by the government show that the renewed negotiations between Ankara and the PKK, which Ankara has been trying to suppress for 40 years,

Turkey is allowing one adult per Syrian family to return after visiting their homeland, but experts warn that easing restrictions may not lead to significant refugee returns amid ongoing uncertainties in Syria.

The Middle East is undergoing a profound transformation as new rivalries reshape its geopolitical order. For decades, the defining conflict in the region was a “cold war” between Iran and the Gulf Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia. This struggle, steeped in sectarian and strategic divides, fueled proxy wars and power struggles across the region.

Talks aimed at ending a 40-year-old militant conflict have fostered peace hopes in Turkey but the precarious situation of Kurdish forces in Syria and uncertainty about Ankara's intentions have left many Kurds anxious about the path ahead.

Turkey threatened Tuesday to launch a military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria unless they accepted Ankara's conditions for a "bloodless" transition after the fall of strongman president Bashar al-Assad.

Paving the way for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to run for a fourth term in office is "on our agenda", the spokesman for the president's ruling party said on Monday, adding that the important factor was whether the people wanted it.